Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Nuke

I've been spending virtually all my time for the past two months working on my physics research. Really getting into a lot more interesting stuff than I did in a year on Maui--probably just because Maui is beautiful to the point of distraction. Or maybe it's the cold temperature that's making my brain think harder for the heat.

But this morning I decided to take a short break for some fun. What does a cold theoretical physicist do for fun when it's snowing outside but the ski hills aren't open yet? Well, find the best heat source available, of course. Here's the nuke:

The core (in front of my toes) sits at the bottom of a twenty-five foot deep cooling pool in what was originally a garage. You can see the dampenning rods inserted in between the brightly glowing uranium fuel rods. Isn't the blue glow of the Cerenkov radiation pretty?